DAY 226 - COLOGNE AND FRANKFURT

5 December, 2011—UXB

Total: 2177 miles–4,663,001 steps

It was an early start from Strasbourg to travel by train, first to Frankfurt and then to Cologne. There was some disruption on the line as a 1.8 tonne British bomb had been found in the Rhine and the town had to be evacuated whilst the bomb disposal team made it safe.

The train delays around Koblenz set an interesting tone for the day as they reminded me first, of the obvious point, that the 10 feet long bomb was exposed because the Rhine was at its lowest level for 65 years as a result of an extensive drought caused by climate change; second, of the brutality of war that such an enormous device would be dropped in a heavily populated civilian area and had it exploded would have killed and maimed hundreds, if not thousands (of course accepting that the people of London and Coventry would recount the same experience); third, of the treasure of peace where, as a result of institutions, through which we can have equally vigorous political disagreements with our European counterparts, without resorting to such acts and finally, thanksgiving at least that this device did not detonate either in 2011 or 1944.

Having built in generous provision for train delays, I arrived in Frankfurt an hour earlier than planned and so decided to walk down to the European Central Bank, which I had visited a number of times before. There the square outside had been given over to the ‘Occupy Movement’, who were protesting against the……….well not entirely sure what, but they were angry. One of the most popular booklets on sale in Europe is a small book by Stephane Hessel called ‘Time for Outrage’. Hessel is a remarkable man, a diplomat, French Resistance fighter, concentration camp survivor who helped frame the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 2010 at the age of 93 he wrote a seminal essay espousing the ‘lost art’ of non-violent protest. It had an initial print run of 6000 copies and has now sold over 3.5 million. I have read the essay a number of times on my trip since it was first pointed out to me in Slovenia and find myself in agreement with analysis, but differing dramatically in his proposed socialist solutions. Yet this criticism is to miss the point; for what he is urging is not a prescriptive solution to our problems, but that we should at least care enough to want to find a solution. The fact that this essay, which is currently mobilising hundreds of thousands of young people across the world, was written by a 93 year old is, I feel, one of the most inspirational subliminal messages of the essay.

I arrived at the offices of the German Olympic Federation to be met by Bernard Schwank, Director of High Performance Sport, Johannes Curtius and Kristian Klaue. The meeting had been set up at short notice, thanks to the persistence of Astrid Ladd and Julia Mueller at the British Embassy in Berlin, and I was delighted to have the opportunity to talk about the truce with such a highly influential team from one of the largest sports federations in the world. We met in the Willi Daume Conference Room (picture) and I was fascinated to learn of the role which he had played in the 1981 Baden-Baden Olympic Congress, which was held at a time when the Olympic Games were on the brink of ending following the boycotts of the Moscow and Los Angeles Games and only one bidder had been received for the following Games. It is hard to think of the Olympic Games being in crisis, as they seem today to be a by-word for sponsorship and broadcasting deals, but they were. The driving force for change came from the athletes themselves and resulted in the most dramatic change in the modern era, which was the end of the division between amateur and professional sports  and a broadening of the number of sports which qualified for the Games. The scale of these national Olympic organisations means that to provide leadership is to try and ‘herd cats’ for there are 16 State level organisations, 60 sporting organisations and 19 special associations all wanting to defend their interests and to have their voice heard. To give direction to such a body requires a special type of leadership and Bernard believed that Willi Daume had set the standard at the time when the German and indeed the International Olympic organisation had needed it most.

There is an understandable nervousness about mixing politics and the Olympics in Germany, as it was the scene of the Nazi exploitation of the 1936 Berlin Games, which of course spectacularly backfired on Hitler thanks to Jesse Owens, and then of course the terrorist attack at the Munich Games in 1972. The instinct to ‘stick to sport’ is an understandable one, but I think it is wrong.   After all the German people were as much the victims of the Nazi regime as the rest of Europe and that whilst some think that the role as a catalyst certainly the Second World War is their legacy I think that the German people’s courage in ending the Cold War is even more significant for it caused civilisation itself to step back from the abyss.  I don’t think that I managed to convince anyone round the table, but I for one, would love to see another Olympic Congress which could be convened to consider how the modern Olympics could further their aim of building peace and reconciliation through sport and of course through the Olympic truce. The meeting ended on a lighter note, with a photo opportunity with ‘Trimmy’, the national mascot for sport in Germany.

It was then back to the train station for a super fast rail connection up to Cologne and a visit to the Olympic & Sport Museum of Germany and a meeting with the press. My host at the museum was Frank Durr, the Director of the Museum. Prior to the tour I had an extensive and thought provoking interview with Susanne Rohlfing—it is always gratifying when journalists take the time to research the issue before they meet and explain the direction they would like the story to take—Sussane was exemplary of all that is great about the profession and as we ended, I felt I had understood more of the context for the truce as a result.

That learning experience was to be built upon by my tour of the museum and discussion with Frank. I had not appreciated, for instance, that there was an initial German reluctance to participate in the Olympic Games because they did not think that sport should be competitive, but rather went for collective sports activities. They saw that competitive sports were an ‘English’ invention and it was something which they disapproved of because their idea was that they wanted to brining the nascent nation together under its own identity and working together rather than competing with each other. I had never heard of this perspective on sport before and I don’t think Michael Schumacher, Franz Beckenbauer or Boris Becker had either.

I promised to follow up on two ideas which had come from my meeting with Frank—the first was the idea of hosting a joint exhibition highlighting German and British sporting competition and the second was an observation that Britain was one of the few major Olympic countries not to have an Olympic Museum; we have a National Football Museum in Preston, but no Olympic museum—surely this is something which must be corrected as part of the legacy of the 2012 Games. In fact even better, make it the first Paralympic and Olympic Museum and base it at Stoke Mandeville!

One the way back the trains were again in chaos, but this again afforded me a very special opportunity, which was to visit Cologne Cathedral which had remained standing despite being hit by over 70 bombs during the saturation bombing of the city by the Allied forces in WWII using the ‘1000 bomber raids’ to reduce the city to rubble. Over 1.5 million bombs were dropped on Cologne alone and over 20,000, overwhelmingly civilians, were killed. I sat quietly in the cathedral and lit a candle for peace there. Even if it was retaliatory, there can be no satisfaction in such indiscriminate destruction, war brutalises us all. There are no national winners for it is humanity that always loses.  Moreover, at times in the future when as a result of political and economic climate change, droughts of goodwill may reveal unexploded devices of grievance and prejudice and they will need to be defused with great care and understanding, for they may be outdated, but they are still capable of reeking calamitous harm if not handled correctly.

DAY 220 - ALL ONE: 19.8 MILES (37,600 STEPS)

29 November, 2011

Le pont de l’Europe (The Bridge of Europe across the Rhine connecting Strasbourg, France and Kehl, Germany)

19.8 miles (Total: 2177 miles) –37,600 steps (Total: 4,663,001 steps)

There is a debate within analysis of international relations, as to what is the best lens through which to view peoples and nations—is it political, political economic, social (cultural/religious), socio-economic or is it geo-political (politics and the economics are defined by the geographic space which the subject occupies).

Don’t go to switch the kettle on at this point, stick with me a little longer if you can……

You see we like to believe that the world is divided up into certain tribes.  That each tribe is unique. That tribes can be good and bad. That the success of certain tribes can be explained by their intrinsic values and aptitudes. That each successful tribe believes that if only every other tribe would have their values and aptitudes, then peace and prosperity would be assured. I have to say that my experience of this walk from Greece, through the Balkans and now into France and Germany suggests that, to use a technical term, this is ‘complete bunkum’.

All tribes are a human construct that serve the prejudice of the people and the interests of their leaders. All people are the same and have simply adapted to the environment they have found themselves in and that our institutions, values and aptitudes owe themselves to our experience of history and that our experience of history is shaped by our geographic environment.   Let me explain a little…..

Why is it that Switzerland has produced scores of successful downhill skiers and Saudi Arabia hasn’t? Why is it that Saudi Arabia is a global centre for the petroleum industry and not the hydro-electric industry and in Switzerland it is the other way around? Why is it that Britain excelled at shipbuilding and navigation of the oceans and Switzerland did not?  Keep going if you wish, but I really happened upon this point in two parts:

First, when I travelled through the Balkans I was invariably told as I was about to leave the territory of one tribe, that I would need to take care when entering the territory of the neighbouring tribe, because “they couldn’t be trusted,” “I would be mugged,” “they would be hostile” and they were “terrible drivers.” I walked through six countries in the Balkans and, to be quite frank, I couldn’t tell the difference: I received wonderful welcomes from Bosniak Muslims, Catholic Croatians, Orthodox Serbians and Romany gypsies, which is stretching the point because most of the time I didn’t have a clue what their background was, they were just fellow human beings and the vast majority responded kindly to a stranger whose background they did not know and a few not so. I witnessed no difference in the quality of driving, though there was difference in the quality of the roads. I felt no more or less at risk in Tirana or Mostar, than I did in Rome or Geneva. Sure people dressed differently, the buildings were different and so were the designs of clothes, but people were the same.

Now does this mean that the people who warned me of the traits of their neighbours lacked intelligence or morality?  No, they just lacked the experience of encountering people from that community. Divided communities allow people to build up grotesque caricatures of their neighbours unchallenged by human experience; consider East and West Belfast, East and West Jerusalem.  However, there is hope; consider East and West Berlin, when the wall came down so did the fear and prejudice.

Am I saying there are no differences at all?  Of course not, but these are not national or ethnic or racial or economic, these are familial. Just as on any given street or in any given school you might find that the ‘Smiths were good at sport,’ ‘the Macgregors were good at maths, and ‘the Kelly’s were good at music’ these are simply a reflection of a physical or mental aptitude or talent, but we wouldn’t think of claiming that one familial pre-disposition in one area made it superior to others. Everyone has a talent for something and that the only tragedy is that in many homes and schools that talent remains undiscovered because people have spent so much time concentrating on the talents of others, that they haven’t got round to discovering the talents they do have.

Second, when I walked across the north of Italy from Trieste to Milan, I was struck how prosperous this part of the world was and how it had been a favoured region for exploration, innovation, art and culture for at least a thousand years. I then looked at the landscape—vast fertile plains irrigated by abundant supplies of fresh water from the Dolomites and the Alps. Venice and Trieste were fantastic ports tucked well away from potential invaders at the top of the Adriatic, requiring navigation of the thousands of Dalmatian islands to be reached. Behind them the Alps and the Dolomites provided a natural ‘gated community’ in which people could live and prosper. So you had perfect conditions for production of goods and perfect outlets for the trade of goods. Shock—northern Italy becomes one of the wealthiest places on the planet and intellectuals, artists and merchants flock to it so that they can flourish in a secure and free environment, but had Southern Sudan had found itself with such a favourable and fertile environment then of course it would have flourished too.

An orphan adopted at birth from one of the poorest communities on the planet and put into a secure and loving home in Oxfordshire where they attend a world class prep-school, top public school might just end up attending an Oxbridge college and securing a materially successful career in the professions and an orphan adopted from Oxfordshire and raised in one of the poorest communities on the planet, may not.

My conclusion is therefore that people are the same, defined only by the relative success with which they have managed to adapt to the environment in which they have found themselves and how that geography has shaped their history. That people want to believe that their success, or lack of it, is a result of their values, or their neighbours lack of them, their strength, their political leaders and their divine favour are led astray by Darwin’s belief that there higher and lower orders of human beings which has been exploited by racists, aristocrats and religious authorities as they seek to galvanise popular support.

No we are all the same and our value and worth comes not from the fact that we may be a member of one family or another, one nation or another, one religion or another.  No our value and worth are because we are human. That is why the democracy of the Greeks went with the grain of humanity because it recognised for the first time that leaders should not be ‘appointed by the gods’, but elected by the people. That is why we are all equal before the law and we stand before it not as representatives of a gender, race, or nation, but as individuals subject to the law and at the same time responsible through democracy for making the law. That is why the early followers of Jesus were so radical and so right when they declared that there was ‘no male or female, no Jew of Greek, no slave or free’ (Gal: 3:28)—we are all one.

So I arrive on the  Le pont de l’Europe the point between Strasbourg and Kehl and stand with one foot in France and the other in Germany. The view of Europe from the Bridge of Europe is very different than that which I had experienced growing up in the in the north east of England. From there, Europe seemed very remote and slightly pointless, more irritating than inspiring.  Well here we go again – could it just be that if the fault line of Europe which had cost millions of lives ran down the middle of the Tyne rather than the Rhine, I might take a slightly different view? Why? If geography had meant that my home town had changed nationality four times in a hundred years and with appalling violence and loss of life, I may just think that the current arrangement where there is free movement and integration of peoples across the Rhine and between the German and French nations, is one which works pretty well; it keeps the peace which maintains prosperity.

Of course, prosperity is the key.  If that magic glue disappears from Europe, then there may be a different story to tell. So when German and French leaders gathered in Strasbourg this week to flesh out a game plan for keeping Europe a float, they were galvanised in their considerations by the fact that they knew what failure could mean for this city and their nations. In the UK we should not sneer at that because we know exactly the same to be true in Northern Ireland and that why we willingly plough billions into the province to keep it from retreating behind the bombs and bullets of the terrorists. We should extend the same courtesy, understanding and support to other members of our European family and respect that geography means that the European institutions we mock from the other side of the channel don’t look quite so ridiculous viewed from the other side of the Rhine.

Well, what do I know?

Answer, a little more than I did a year ago.

DAY 218 - KOGENHEIM TO STRASBOURG: 19.8 MILES (37,600 STEPS)

27 November, 2011

19.8 miles (Total: 2177 miles) –37,600 steps (Total: 4,663,001 steps)

Remember that feeling you would get when there was a knock at the door and it would be a friend asking if you were ‘coming out to play?’ I can’t think that I ever said “no” perhaps because it didn’t happen that often. Times change but the child is still the man. After my fall, I received many offers from friends and family offering to come out and help with my rucksack, which I can’t carry on account of my broken arm. I could barely contain my excitement as the offers came in and I would immediately respond ‘yes please!’ and then run upstairs to get changed.

After Tom Hall and Stephen Bates last week, it was Sir Peter Vardy and Rob Parsons this week. We managed to connect at Kogenheim late at night on Saturday with relative ease, thanks to SatNav and GPS. Peter and Rob are two of my oldest, correction, longest standing friends. The great joy of having people who you know so well coming out, is that there is no awkward getting to know you phase as you slide effortlessly, in the visitors esteem, from just north of Mahatma Ghandi to something just south of Homer Simpson.

Both Peter and Rob have known me at my best and my worst and they still stick around; I suppose because a friend is someone who gives you permission to be fully yourself on the understanding that you will afford them the same courtesy. There is a mutuality at the heart of friendship: it reminds me what my father used to say—“if you want to know what some one thinks of you, ask yourself what you think of them, because the answer will be exactly the same”. This is one of life’s truest statements. Many times people wander through life thinking that the person they are talking to is a complete idiot or of no importance, but believing that he is thinking how brilliant and special you are, when of course they are thinking exactly the same as you.

Rob Parsons and Peter Vardy are two of the people I admire most. Every time I am with them I am thinking how remarkable they are with the amazing projects they are engaged in and the countless lives they are touching for good through the Vardy Foundation and Care for the Family. I am inspired to be in their company and honoured to count them as friends. But even better than that, they are fun to be with and we have a tremendous time as we share stories, jokes and news. There is so much to catch up on. I confess that as with Tom and Stephen last week, I find it a wrench to have to go out and walk, because I want to just hang out with them.

I managed to hype up my chafing and my arm injury to the extent that I granted myself a day off on the Sunday so we can go and visit the Strasbourg Christmas Market and wander around with a glass or two of hot mulled wine to warm our hands and our hearts. Peter is a master organiser and has bought us tram tickets and highlighted the key sights on the map, whilst Rob and I are practicing card tricks in the lobby of the hotel. We even managed to make it into the Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg before Holy Communion and out before the collection, which is like a Christian’s ‘triple word score’. In the evening Peter managed to get a top tip on a restaurant which was close to the hotel. The restaurant ‘Papa Lisa, 67100 Strasbourg’ is in a heavily industrialised zone and from the outside you would imagine it to be a very downmarket working men’s club, but inside the restaurant is packed, the atmosphere warm and welcoming and the food sublime.

We debated and shared ideas for new projects into the early hours and by the time I turned in for bed, I realised for probably the first time, I am homesick. I realised how much I miss my friends and family and how much I find myself inspired by them and wanting to help them as they help me in our various endeavours. I wanted to just hang out with them again the next day, but knew I had to complete the section from Kogenheim to Strasbourg; it was the equivalent to having all your friends playing football in your back garden and having to stay upstairs and do your homework—not that that ever happened with me. Then disaster struck…. we found that ‘Papa Lisa’ was closed on a Monday –sometimes we face trials and tribulations for a purpose other times you think that it is just because you were having way too much fun, which I suppose is fair enough, we were.

Into the levity came the shock news of Gary Speed’s death. It sobered the mood. It is such a mystery; such a waste of a life that seemed to have it all and have so much still to give. When faced with death we want to believe that there is a ‘why?’, but sometimes there isn’t. We want to have the events heavily trailed…addiction, rejection, depression etc. but when someone goes from being happy, successful and cheerful to taking their own life over night, it scares us. It scares us because it holds open the possibility that it could happen to us. Ultimately suicide is a selfish act because whilst it provides an escape hatch for the person, the other victims, family and friends, are forced to go on living with not only your loss, but the guilt that they perhaps could have done something to stop it.

I went to bed that night giving thanks to God for the family and friends in my life who have been there and are there in my hour of need as I have hopefully been in theirs, and to savour every precious moment that I am able to spend with them; for the box of life is marked fragile and it needs to be handled with care because you can never be quite sure what is inside.